Morphometric evaluation of facial and vestibulocochlear nerves using
magnetic resonance imaging in patients with Menière’s disease - a
retrospective study
Abstract
Objectives: Several studies proposed a loss of neural structures in
Menière’s disease (MD). It has also been shown that VIIth and VIIIth
cranial nerves are enlarged within MD patients compared to normal
controls. We aimed to investigate potential differences in these two
nerves in patients with MD. Setting: 71 patients with MD were included,
53 showed clinically unilateral affection.
Constructive-interference-in-steady-state(CISS) and
3D-FLAIR-inversion-recovery(IR) sequences with two different slice
thicknesses were acquired on a clinical 3T magnetic resonance imaging
scanner. We evaluated morphometric properties of the VIIth and VIIIth
cranial nerves passing from the cerebellopontine angle to the inner ear
modiolus. In patients with clinically unilateral MD, we compared the
unaffected to the clinically affected side. In addition, we evaluated
the morphology of the nerves in correlation to symptom duration.
Results: The clinically unilateral MD-patients showed no significant
differences after Bonferroni correction when comparing the affected side
to the non-affected side of VIIth and VIIIth cranial nerves. There was
no significant difference between patients with different symptom
durations. Conclusions: Our data showed no differences in nerve
morphometry between the clinically non-affected and the clinically
affected side in patients with clinically unilateral MD. There was also
no correlation to duration of symptoms, in contrast to previously
demonstrated correlations between clinical features and the extent of
endolymphatic hydrops. A disease process starting before onset of
clinical symptoms could be a potential explanation.